Two lakes.
I live in a small settlement, and the road from home to work takes me about twenty, twenty-five minutes. I walk to work, but I usually do this in winter or late autumn and early spring, during the thaw and muddy season, until the road dries out. The street runs between two small lakes and turns to mush, so I can't ride my bike on it. This is my everyday transport in our settlement, although most have bought cars and sometimes the traffic during rush hour is like in a small town. Taking a detour makes the road two or even three times longer, and in winter, along the graded and frozen street, it's very close, and this route seems to come alive
in the mornings and during rush hour.In winter, these lakes freeze over and thick ice forms on them. Sometimes fishermen sit there and catch fish. The depth of the big lake is about two meters, and the small one is less than a meter. Reeds grow around the perimeter of the big and small lake, and shrubs grow along the banks. In winter, of course, they are leafless, but due to the density of the thickets, it's always hard to see through them to the mirror of ice where someone is fishing or skating. And only in a gap where the shrubs are sparse can you see everything. At night, of course, there's no one there, and early in the morning on my way to work, an idea came to me. It struck me like lightning and wouldn't leave me alone, and I thought. As soon as the weather gets warm, I'll try to realize it to get it out of my head and forget it, like a passed stage of my life.
Every day, walking to work and returning home, I examined every bush, every trampled path through the reed thickets, and decided there was no point in delaying. The weather had improved a bit, and at night the thermometer showed minus three to five degrees, during the day around zero, and snow was flying. November was coming to an end.
Soon I saw these small lakes and looked around. It was five minutes to eight. No one was walking ahead or behind me, and there was no car traffic yet, so I turned onto a path into the reeds and found myself on the lake. It wasn't big, only about two hundred meters in diameter. In a pre-scouted spot on the opposite side, I quickly undressed, folded my pants and sweater inside my jacket, wrapped it up, and stuffed it into the thickets, covering it with reeds I had picked earlier. It seemed to work out, and nothing was visible. I stood naked in just boots and a sports cap, and I wasn't cold. Visibility was minimal, and it was impossible to make out what was beyond the small lake.
Running along the edge of the thickets, I came out onto the path I had used to enter the lake ice and peeked out at the street. It was quiet, and no footsteps could be heard in either direction. Gathering my strength, I ran out onto it and, crossing the road which was seven to nine meters wide, ended up on the opposite side on a path among shrub thickets, and after walking a few meters, I stepped onto the ice of the second lake. The obstacle, which I considered to be the street where people walk to work in the morning and many cars drive, had been overcome. But this was only the beginning, and now I needed to decide when to return to both make it to work on time and avoid being seen. The solution came somehow, on its own.
On the opposite side of the lake, in the houses standing along the shore, a light came on, and I decided. I'll cross the lake, and then come back. I was already very excited and, without realizing it, how much I was risking. After all, only from the street it seemed to me that it was close and I would only need 10-15 minutes to run naked across the ice there and back. But the ice was slippery, and my boots, though they never slipped on the road, on the ice I almost fell several times. There was very little time, and that scared and alarmed me, but I was already on the other side and very excited, and somehow I wasn't afraid of that at all then, not knowing what of. In summer it's easier, you can hide and wait for hours if needed, but in winter you can freeze. You can't sit naked in the bushes for long. But I didn't even think about that then, and I walked, completely surrendering to my desires, not reason, sneaking and looking around, along the edge of the second lake, which was about twice as big as the first, about half a kilometer. So I walked, hiding behind the reed thickets, to that house where the light was on, and then lights came on in several more houses at once, and I flinched, even though I had absolutely nothing to fear. No one could see me anyway. I stood for a couple of minutes and heard distant voices, and someone was warming up their car after the night to go to work.
It was dark, and I couldn't see the time on my wristwatch, and my phone was turned off and lying there with my clothes, so that in case of anything, its ring wouldn't attract attention. I turned around and started back, and saw a car drive down the street at that time, lighting the road with its headlights. Followed by a second one.
"So the traffic has started," I thought and, now more carefully to avoid slipping on the ice and falling, I started to run, slightly crouching and listening, to the place where, some time ago, I had crossed the street naked.
There wasn't that much snow, but underfoot it still made an unusual squeaky sound, and that started to alarm me, although at the very beginning I simply hadn't paid any attention to it. The return journey took much longer, but I reached the path that led to the street. Cars were passing by with some frequency, sometimes one, sometimes two, sometimes three or four at once. Crouching at the edge among the shrubs, I started to listen. From the direction I had come from, towards the center of the settlement, voices could be heard, and I understood that people were already walking, like me, to work on foot. They weren't visible, but an appearing car illuminated several people, and I pressed myself down again to avoid coming into view. Two more cars passed, and then a group of people drew level with me and passed by as if nothing had happened, not even suspecting or guessing that a few meters away from them in the bushes I had been sitting naked for five or ten minutes already, waiting for an opportunity to run across to the opposite side. Soon a car appeared again, and another one was already returning towards it. And a little later I again heard coughing and voices. Two guys passed, and a little behind, a guy and a girl who were walking as if strolling, unhurriedly and chatting cheerfully. With each minute, it seemed to me that visibility was increasing more and more, and instead of 5-7 meters, I could now see about 30 meters if not more.
"Delay is akin to death," I thought, and I had to decide something. After waiting for two more groups of several people to pass by and a car to drive past, I, without waiting for the people walking in the distance and talking among themselves to also pass by, jumped out from behind the shrubs and, like a frightened little animal, bulleted across the dozen meters of road and, crouching in the reeds, listened. That group passed by, and someone said
"I thought it looked like a rabid dog running across the road."
"Anything's possible, there are plenty of stray dogs, maybe someone scared it," answered a second voice, and they, walking further, soon moved away. I also got up and trudged, hiding behind the reed thickets, towards my clothes. Those words about a stray dog wouldn't leave my head. That means they compared me, naked, running across the road crouched down, to a stray dog. I even found it a little funny.
Calmly getting dressed, I came out onto the street, as if I had gone into the reeds to relieve myself, and as if nothing had happened, I trudged to work. Being about ten minutes late, I started work. But no one even noticed. However, I couldn't get this walk within the settlement limits, naked in winter, out of my head, where I had taken such a risk and it could have happened that I wouldn't have been able to get back across the road in time and I could have been seen not by pedestrians or car drivers, but by fishermen coming to the lake to fish.
Marina K.
Chelyabinsk Region